While most managers have the responsibility to take good care of idols and technically,
being a father/mother without having blood relation, things may not be so correct in
these following cases considering what our idols have gone through.
1.
EVERGLOW’s Aisha got yelled at by a male staff member
Throwback time on June 30 last year, while all members of EVERGLOW were having some fun
with fans, a moment that lasted not until 30 seconds raised concern as to whether the
act was being treated terribly by the management agency.
According to fans, though they were all eyes and ears to the girls, they still couldn’t
help noticing how a man was angrily scolding a girl in the background.
The yelling then became so loud that it even startled one member of the group and if you
pay some more attention, you’ll even hear her saying: “Oh jeez, he freaked me out."
As KPOP fans are born detectives, it wasn’t hard for them to find out that the man was
very likely one of the staff of Yuehua Entertainment and the person he was angry at was Aisha—the
lead rapper and sub vocalist that was born in 2000.
The thing is that, if things had just ended there and the company just let fans speculate
whatever they liked, the story could have slipped through since no one was dedicated
enough to follow a case that even themselves were unsure about.
However, the company chose the option that literally canceled themselves and implicitly
admitted the worry of fans was true—deleting the video with no justification.
This fueling move soon caused another uproar and consolidated fans’ belief that Aisha
was being treated poorly, and properly even poorer when the camera wasn’t rolling.
And do you know why the company’s crisis management was called a self-canceling one?
With the power of the Internet and technology, fans could easily capture and record that
whole controversial situation even when the original clip wasn’t there, and of course,
it didn’t take long for the video to go viral online.
Things were so tense that besides EVERGLOW’s fans, international Kpop fans also stepped
in to ask for a response from Yuehua Entertainment and took to Twitter to trend the hashtags
#WhatsHappeningInthisVlive and #ProtectEverglow to prove that the company is now under their
scrutiny and fans wouldn’t leave them alone if they know for sure Everglow was mistreated.
People raised their concern that if the staff had the gut to act that rude right on livestream,
who could imagine what they would do when no one is around?
Besides asking for clarification, netizens also send warming words to EVERGLOW to show
how much they love and care for the girls.
Since there are always two arrays of opinion, some people said that fans shouldn’t make
a storm in a teacup because the staff was probably just sneezing and making the girls
startled.
However, this reasoning didn’t sit still with most people because if it was just a
sneeze, the girls wouldn't be so scared.
On top of that, many expressed that they couldn't know for sure what Everglow have been going
through, and the best they could do was to hope that the girls wouldn’t suffer too
much during their days in KPOP.
2.
Park Bom was forced to end her livestream
In case you think that only young acts like EVERGLOW must face this kind of situation
then sadly, it’s something that even senior idols in the industry must also go through.
Though Park Bom has been active in the industry for more than 11 years, last year when she
was doing an Instagram livestream with fans on Christmas, her manager outrightly disrespected
her right in front of thousands of people.
Specifically, amid Bom's livestream, her manager angrily stepped in and expressed her anger
because Bom didn’t pick up her call.
Not stopping there, the manager even demanded her to stop the livestream and soon got out
without further explanation.
Things actually happened so quickly that your brain might not be able to process what was
going on but still, Bom had to do as being told.
After staying quiet for a few seconds, she sadly whispered: “Why was she blaming me?”,
and stopped the broadcast without saying anything more.
Since Park Bom was the only artist under DNation and was the only source of income for the
company at the time, no one could ever understand why the hell she was being treated like trash
in the place maintained by her pocket money.
Soon enough, the hashtag #RespectParkBom was trending on Twitter right on the holiday and
many complaints, criticism and demands for a justifiable response were also sent to DNation’s
CEO - Scotty.
According to fans, this wasn’t the first time Park Bom was mistreated because when
fans tried to contact DNation after hearing nothing from her since the beginning of 2020,
the company just simply ignored them.
Connecting all the dots together, they believed that Park Bom had been poorly treated by this
company for a long time but due to her image and terms in the contract, she couldn't do
anything at all.
3.
Fanatics’s member got slapped for trying to help her groupmates
In 2020, the livestream of FANATICS went viral on the Internet not because of it being fun
or something, but because of a disheartening incident.
You know how female idols in KPOP often have a blanket on to cover their laps when sitting,
right?
Since two of the members were dressing in short skirts on the livestream, their groupmate
who wasn’t shown on the camera, was seen giving them a jacket to cover up their legs.
And you know what happened right back then?
Literally seconds after that, a male that was believed to be the group’s manager was
heard yelling at this groupmate.
Though everything was happening in the background, everyone could still hear what the man was
yelling: “What are you doing?
What are you covering?
It needs to be seen, just let people see the legs.
Are you stupid?”
After that terrifying conversation, a slapping sound came clear and if you pay attention
to the girls then, you will see the fear in their eyes as they tried to get rid of the
jacket.
Since fans believed the incident has elevated to a concerning level related to sexual harassment,
fans were determined to condemn the company and continuously send criticisms to them until
they got an answer.
Under such pressure, FANATICS’s agency, FENT, issued a statement admitting their faults
and promised to not let things happen that way anymore: “We acknowledged that our company’s
staff member’s speech amid the livestream was wrong.
We are taking corresponding actions against the responsible individuals.
In the future, we will be more cautious to prevent these types of issues from occurring
again.”
So, do you think these are just some rare cases or a common thing that has been happening
for a long time in the Kpop industry?